At What Point Do You Give Up?

In response to my statement in “Real Empiricists Test”, uForia asked a follow up question on how you can tell the difference between something not working because you’re not getting right, and something not working because it simply doesn’t work:

“I think for most new guys, skepticism comes up when they follow your instructions but it blew up anyways, which questions your legitimacy. It is uncertain for many beginners like myself whether your method needs more practice or it’s just random PUA junk. Again, I didn’t say this to offend you or anything (I think you’re probably mature enough to not be offended anyways), as I’m sure you had difficulties finding what works and what doesn’t as well.”

In other words, when should you give up?

This is a non-trivial question, and it’s one that’s pretty necessary to have some sort of an answer to. Because if you can’t tell when you’ve been tossing your time away on something that just doesn’t work, well... you can end up being that guy who goes and does 5000 approaches and still can’t get laid.

And you don’t want to be that guy.

The good news is that most people have a limit where they reach where they just give up without anyone having to tell them to do so... the bad news is that for most people that limit comes far too early, and for some it comes far too late.